“Kana wadya gudo chidya gono!” so goes the Shona saying. The literal translation is; if you have to eat a baboon then you will be advised to pick a fat and healthy one and not a puny and sick one. It seems Prime Minister Tsvangirai got the wrong end of the stick; this was never meant for doing something really stupid.
Ever since Mugabe starting holding back declaring the election results of the March 2008 elections, in the end it took five weeks to announce the results, everyone else except Tsvangirai smelt a rat. Mugabe went the full hog when he deployed his thugs, the Police and Army to terrorise and murder the electorate to force them to vote for him in the presidential run-off of 27 June 2008. Not even the normally see-nothing, hear-nothing and say-nothing African Union Election Observer would endorse the run-off as a free and fair election and therefore a true reflection of the electoral wish of the people of Zimbabwe. The international community refused to recognise Mugabe as the legal president of Zimbabwe leaving the dictator out in the cold. It was Tsvangirai who got Mugabe off the hook.
No one in their right mind who have even consider forming a power sharing government with Mugabe- not after the shameful and murderous way he had “won” the run-off. No one, that is, but Tsvangirai. And Tsvangirai being his usual stupid self did not only agree to a power sharing arrangement but agreed to one in which the dictator had all his dictatorial powers and Tsvangirai had nothing but some token power.
After a whole year of Mugabe kicking Tsvangirai in the teeth at every turn, one would think Tsvangirai had learnt his lesson and would want to end one-sided relationship. The idiot is off to Europe in the next few weeks as head of an MDC delegation to ask the European Union to lift the targeted sanctions imposed on the dictator and his inner circle.
The sanctions were imposed on Mugabe in 2002 after failing to hold another free and fair election. The June 2008 election violence was a lot worse than the 2002. Mugabe has foiled all attempts to have those responsible for the past political violence punished and he has not disbanded his party’s militia. There is already a significant increase in politically motivated violence in Zimbabwe. So why should the EU lift the sanctions; people ask?
Even some of PM Tsvangirai’s cheer leaders, Professor John Makumbe for example who have always put a positive spin in every Tsvangirai blunder in the past, are questioning what the ordinary people would be gain from having the sanctions lifted. Mugabe and his cronies would be free to travel and access all the wealth they ferreted away. The need for fresh elections is self evident and with the sanctions lifted the EU would have no stick with which to gorge Mugabe to hold free and fair elections.
Tsvangirai is banking on the hope that his policy of appeasement will some day work and turn the dictator into a democrat! It is the people of Zimbabwe who have paid dearly for Mugabe’s years of corrupt and repressive rule. They are at the cutting edge. Tsvangirai has never stopped to think of them.
Tsvangirai was promised the post of Prime Minister and he was willing to do anything including betraying the very principles he said he stood for and the people who risked their lives to elect him. He was desperate, desperate to have a taste of political power. He is no different from the multitude of all the other Zimbabwean politicians before him and in power today.
Mugabe must be chaffed to bits to see Tsvangirai argue his case before the West. Mugabe has always accused Tsvangirai of being “the West’s puppet” and treated him with utter contempt. But sending the puppet back to his masters with Mugabe pulling the strings would tickle the dictator no end!
“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict,” President Barak Obama in his inaugural address, “or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
Mugabe has not only his fist tightly clenched but has again shown he will not hesitate to use it to hammer those who dare criticise his oppressive and ruinous reign of terror. And people like Tsvangirai want the whole world to sweep aside all the misery and suffering he has inflicted in the past and continue to inflict on the ordinary Zimbabweans does not matter. If the cold blooded murder of the innocent by the very people entrusted to protect them does not matter; what does?!
It is bad enough that one should ever have do something completely stupid. Still, one should come back to one’s senses sooner or later. “Penga udzoke!” as the Shona would say. Sadly Tsvangirai is beyond the pale, he is devoid of any common sense.
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